The Venom Inside
by MissVoltage
Summary: Ishida's past is haunting him, and he's worried it will take a toll on his relationship with Ichigo. Ichigo/Ishida. Mentions of yaoi.


Sometimes he wondered how long it would be before Ichigo left.

How much more he would have to push to screw everything up.

Ishida often wondered things like this as he laid in bed alone, any down moment without Ichigo or hollows to fight or homework to do.

Ichigo knew what he was like. He wasn't monogamous. Maybe the strawberry was only taking on other bed partners to even things up, or maybe to just try and understand him. Maybe he wanted to feel like he wasn't compromised.

Ishida just couldn't stop himself. He'd been doing it for so long that he didn't know how to stop. He went from partner to partner, most of them men, letting his body be used for temporary pleasure.

It was in those few moments of blinding ecstasy that his body and soul were at peace. Nothing mattered. Total, blissful apathy.

And those he'd been with all knew his lover, too. It was a wonder no one ever confronted Ichigo about the Quincy, never said anything about his adultery. But Ichigo knew. Everyone knew.

Yet still the shinigami found a place in his heart to care for Uryu, to give him everything and be his everything. He was there for him, emotionally, physically, every way possible. He was head over heels in love with Ishida, and though the sentiments were reciprocated and Ishida loved him back with all of his being, it just wasn't enough to make him stop.

He wondered how many more people he would sleep with before Ichigo left him. How many infidelities did he need to commit?

Ishida was pushing him away, only wanting to be told that nothing could break them apart.

Most of the names he kept to himself. He didn't want Ichigo to know who he'd been with, who had fucked him and who he had fucked. It would be unfair for the soul reaper to have to look at his comrades in a different way. He didn't want to cause any rifts or bring any trouble between parties.

He'd never even told Ichigo who it was he'd lost his virginity to. It had been so long ago and there had been so many since then, but it seemed as though he couldn't escape the memory of this one man.

They had come together, both outwardly showing apathy and disdain, while inwardly begging for companionship and restitution for a blank exterior. He'd been seduced into a world he knew nothing of, and was so willing to throw away something so special. Even then, all Ishida had wanted was Ichigo, and the boy seemed so phenomenally unattainable that he'd given up. His first time was the beginning of a dark world that he quickly grew addicted to.

Sex took away the pain and allowed a small window of feigned freedom.

He learned that quickly.

Byakuya Kuchiki taught him that.

His first time with the noble set a precedence for the rest of his life. He went through bed partners like they were nothing. And they all wanted a piece of the beautiful, exotic boy, the last of his kind. He allowed himself to be passed around the Seireitei, merely greeting officers he knew before quickly finding his way to their beds. The eleventh division, the ninth, the third, they all ran together after awhile.

He'd given up so much and cared so little that he finally felt he had absolutely nothing to loose. He'd already destroyed himself on the inside; what was a little more pain?

Things went horribly askew when he actually went after Ichigo. The boy didn't reject him. He was taken in with open arms and given everything he had wanted.

He had debauched and slandered himself for nothing. He had been so wrong.

Ishida had everything now. The perfect love life, his powers, everything he wanted. But his past continued to haunt him. Every now and then he'd get the itch of unrest, the uncertainty that he didn't really have Ichigo. And then he would seek out a way to drown himself in sensation, lust, and lies.

How much more could Ichigo take from him?

Ishida hoped Ichigo truly loved him. It was love that he needed to stop himself from repeating these mistakes over and over again. He needed to be loved unconditionally, and to believe that he had it.

Only Ichigo could do that for him, no one else.


End file.
